Deals, Investments & M&As

Corion, a unified, unregulated, decentralized, mobile cryptocurrency platform operating on the Ethereum Classic blockchain, is underway in its ICO. The offering, which will close on July 30, will pay out between 3-25% bonus to participants, with early birds earning 0.2% daily during the offering and service providers generating between 5-10x more return on existing 0-2.5% coin supply growth in the medium term.

Two obscure companies with no sales raised nearly $400 million combined in recent days from outside investors. How did they do it? Via a new, unregulated fundraising method that has no connection to Wall Street and is based in the world of cryptocurrencies.

FAO: We have added this piece in our sister publication FinTech Daily News. The phenomenon has grabbed the attention of the main financial media too.

Cryptocurrencies

In this opinion piece, Rizzo discusses developments in bitcoin’s scaling debate, adding color to the cast of characters involved in the hopes of highlighting essential parts of the disagreement at play.

FAO: More coverage on the Segwit2x proposal in our previous editions i.e. here and here.

Exchanges & Trading Venues

CFTC has granted blockchain startup LedgerX its formal registration as a swap execution facility (SEF), making it the second company ever to be granted the ability to trade digital currency derivatives.

FAO: TeraExchange was the first, last year. Not quite familiar with SEFs? Here’s a page on CFTC website. And here’s the list of all registered SEFs.

Developed by the Enigma team at MIT, Catalyst aims to be the “glue” between cryptocurrency exchanges, while also extending open source algorithmic trading tools like Quantopian and Zipline for use in the cryptocurrencies ecosystem.

The former CEO of collapsed Bitcoin exchange MtGox heads to trial in Tokyo next week on charges stemming from the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the virtual currency from its digital vaults.

Everything checked out: here was a man who had truly become filthy rich from Bitcoin.

FAO: A certain Mr. Smith invested $3000 in BTC in 2010…This kind of stories now appearing on every wall. Not so interesting anymore. At this BTC market cap we could easily fill a daily newsletter dedicated to crypto self-made millionaires, some by mistake…

Ethereum has created a platform that makes it easy for developers to create nearly any type of smart contract that they want, while bitcoin has been added similar functionality at a much slower pace. But bitcoin developers like Lightning Network paper co-author Tadge Dryja argue there’s a reason for adding smart contract functionality to bitcoin more cautiously.

FAO: Interesting.

Regulation

In a joint statement, the Polish National Bank and the Financial Supervision Commission delivered a broad warning against investing in digital currencies, citing price volatility and the risk of fraud. The regulators clarified that cryptocurrencies – it identifies bitcoin, litecoin and ether – are not considered legal tender in Poland.

The Russian Communications Ministry supports launching pilot projects involving cryptocurrencies, even if the experiments do not have a positive outcome, Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov said Saturday.

In June, Russia’s Central Bank (CBR) said that it had launched work on creating a national virtual currency.

Virtual currencies like bitcoin are assets but bitcoin in itself does not have the fundamental attributes needed to be a currency that could meet modern economic development needs, a Chinese central bank adviser said.

DNT: Interesting point of view..I am in a kind of disagree with it. What do you think?

Although by this point most major financial institutions are exploring blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) initiatives, and have even built solutions leveraging the technologies, so far these products have languished in a contained testing or proof of concept (POC) environment, and the prospect of taking them live seemed distant.

\Now, however, there are indications that FIs are finally moving beyond the POC stage.